When I get off work Monday morning, I'll be off until January 3rd. I plan to smoke my remaining cigarettes -- not more than 2 or 3 packs, probably less -- then give quitting another go.

Ya gotta want it...
If you really want it, you can do it. But ya really gotta want it. All it takes is not smoking the next cigarette. That's all. You don't have to worry about smoking the next week or the next month or even the next year. You just have to not smoke the next ONE...

Plan to spend a lot of time in this thread venting. Friends help friends bury the bodies...

...but most importantly, girls who wouldn't kiss me because I smelled like an ash tray!

I haven't smoked since my mid-twenties, but I somehow missed them queuing up once I'd stopped...

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

When I get off work Monday morning, I'll be off until January 3rd. I plan to smoke my remaining cigarettes -- not more than 2 or 3 packs, probably less -- then give quitting another go.

Best of luck with that. My brother-in-law went to all kinds of extremes trying to stop, including keeping a tupperware box full of dog doo doo that he would sniff every time he had a craving (I kid you not). In the end it just took willpower (and a heart attack...) before he could give up.

I haven't smoked since my mid-twenties, but I somehow missed them queuing up once I'd stopped...

When we told you to stuff a rolled up pair of socks into your underwear, we meant the front of your underwear...

Quote:

In the end it just took willpower (and a heart attack...) before he could give up.

Unfortunately, that's the truth. It takes willpower. For some, it's not difficult. For others, damn near impossible. But it IS do-able. For some. tapering down with NRT helps, but the nicotine isn't the hard part. That's over and done with in two weeks. It's the 'habit' that makes stopping so hard. Years and years of unconsciously reaching into your pocket for a cigarette, taking out your favorite lighter, and taking that first deep drag, holding it just an extra second, then slowly letting it out... The psych guys call that the 'sighing breath response.' Try it without the cigarette. It still works just as well, and is a wonderful tool to use during your first couple of weeks. And remember, someone is always HERE if you need to scream... We'll listen. We've been there and done the screaming ourselves.

Location: The Olympic Peninsula on the OTHER Washington! (the big green clean one on the west coast!)

Device: Kindle, the original! Times Two! and gifting an International Kindle

water replacement therapy is also very good, have a glass, or at least a drink of water every time you want a smoke. in addition to breaking THAT habit, it helps instill another healthy habit that everyone could probably stand. I probably consume about a gallon of water a day, and no, I don't pee that much more than the average person, I have really good hydration and muscle tone

Me: By the way, you are the most miserable sack of dripping effluent I have ever had dribbling its half-witted, grunt-sullen, obstreperous, feebleminded vomit of misery and slack-jawed drooling idiocy on my shoes in my entire life, and I hope the afternoon finds you stabbing and pulling on a rusty fishing gaff trying to claw out the bug that has obviously crawled up your laze-fattened arse. You are a credit to the depressingly useless realm of unprofessialism, ignorance, blind stupidity and groundless arrogance that calls itself the "Dymocks Book Chain". I hope a plague of brain-eating roaches swarms through your next Annual General Meeting and eats through your spinal cords, ravenously trying to find some semblance of sentient flesh.

...is what, of course, I did not say.

Dymocks, to me, are simply a pack of arsehats. The only consequence I can see when, should my sacrifices of entertainment lawyers and small lumps of fungus to the Elder Gods be noticed, they collapse into a fading stench of rank arrogance and stale obnoxiousness, will be that perhaps people who like books, want to sell books, and want to be nice while selling books to nice customers (I'm looking at you Borders Australia - Dymocks is a warning you have thus far heeded) will fill their spot.

In the meantime, remember, Dymocks aren't evil; they just suck harder than Paris Hilton in a post-game football locker room.

Years and years of unconsciously reaching into your pocket for a cigarette, taking out your favorite lighter, and taking that first deep drag, holding it just an extra second, then slowly letting it out... The psych guys call that the 'sighing breath response.' Try it without the cigarette. It still works just as well, and is a wonderful tool to use during your first couple of weeks. And remember, someone is always HERE if you need to scream... We'll listen. We've been there and done the screaming ourselves.

Stitchawl

I've read it's triggered by dopamine in the brain. The first drag, the first swig, first hit, the first bet even the first purchase triggers the dopamine which is perceived as pleasure. You can picture it in your mind right now. Rats and mice will press buttons that trigger it in their brains until they drop dead.
The lower your dopamine levels the harder it is to give up whatever it is that you have become addicted to because it triggers the dopamine pleasure centre.
An amino acid call tyrosine is necessary to make dopamine. The naturopaths and doctors where I work have had good success with addictions with a supplement of tyrosine. It has to be taken without any other competing amino acids or it doesn't work. It's not a cure but a head start for any addiction, including sugar which seems to be harder to give up than all the above.

Me: By the way, you are the most miserable sack of dripping effluent I have ever had dribbling its half-witted, grunt-sullen, obstreperous, feebleminded vomit of misery and slack-jawed drooling idiocy on my shoes in my entire life, and I hope the afternoon finds you stabbing and pulling on a rusty fishing gaff trying to claw out the bug that has obviously crawled up your laze-fattened arse. You are a credit to the depressingly useless realm of unprofessialism, ignorance, blind stupidity and groundless arrogance that calls itself the "Dymocks Book Chain". I hope a plague of brain-eating roaches swarms through your next Annual General Meeting and eats through your spinal cords, ravenously trying to find some semblance of sentient flesh.

...is what, of course, I did not say.

Dymocks, to me, are simply a pack of arsehats. The only consequence I can see when, should my sacrifices of entertainment lawyers and small lumps of fungus to the Elder Gods be noticed, they collapse into a fading stench of rank arrogance and stale obnoxiousness, will be that perhaps people who like books, want to sell books, and want to be nice while selling books to nice customers (I'm looking at you Borders Australia - Dymocks is a warning you have thus far heeded) will fill their spot.

In the meantime, remember, Dymocks aren't evil; they just suck harder than Paris Hilton in a post-game football locker room.

See, that's a rant. I feel somewhat better now.

Cheers,
Marc

Quit beating around the bush, and tell us how you really feel[/QUOTE]

I wish that was the first time I heard that Marc. Stick around long enough mate and you'll watch someone else write them up the same way.

I've read it's triggered by dopamine in the brain. The first drag, the first swig, first hit, the first bet even the first purchase triggers the dopamine which is perceived as pleasure. You can picture it in your mind right now. Rats and mice will press buttons that trigger it in their brains until they drop dead.

I read about that... I'm surprised it never took hold as a recreational drug. It's prescribed for Parkson's Disease patients, and my father, who passed away from the disease years ago, took it regularly, and I used to ask him if he felt any particular pleasure sensations from it. He said that he didn't, but perhaps at the dosage he was taking all it did was control the disease.

I (accidentally) used Lobeline when I stopped smoking. I needed to stop for a 28-hour series of flights and airports, and thought about using the 'patch.' I tried it, but didn't like the way it made me feel. My wife had found some 'Stop Smoking' herbal stuff at a mall kiosk, (which I laughed at knowing it wouldn't work...) and I tried that. Incredible!!!
Apparently, lobeline bonds with the same neural receptors as nicotine, so when the body is 'craving' (i.e. the receptors are calling for a hit) the lobeline satisfies them. But lobeline is NOT addictive... So after two weeks of satisfying the physical need, and the nicotine has been flushed from the system, and when you stop taking the lobeline, those receptors stop calling for anything! I had absolutely no physical withdrawal symptoms at all during those two weeks, no cravings what so ever, and none when I stopped taking the Lobeline. It wasn't until two months later that the 'mental addiction' really kicked in and made my life pure hell for the next three years...

The only slight drawback to this is that lobeline is highly poisonous. Other than that, no problem. Fortunately, the amount that was in the herbal stuff wasn't toxic to someone my size. I learned latter that it was taken off the market because too many small women using it were getting really, really sick...

You might want to start writing down the 'triggers' that you notice... the things that set off the desire to smoke. Like; having a drink with a friend, getting off of public transportation, or out of the car, every night right after finishing a good meal, the once-a-year after-sex cigarette, etc., etc. Some of the triggers I found for me were really surprising, and helped me avoid them later on when I was really on shaky ground. I STILL will never understand what triggered the cravings I used to get when I was 30 meters under water scuba diving...

You might want to start writing down the 'triggers' that you notice... the things that set off the desire to smoke. Like; having a drink with a friend, getting off of public transportation, or out of the car, every night right after finishing a good meal, the once-a-year after-sex cigarette, etc., etc. Some of the triggers I found for me were really surprising, and helped me avoid them later on when I was really on shaky ground. I STILL will never understand what triggered the cravings I used to get when I was 30 meters under water scuba diving...

Stitchawl

The only thing that isn't a trigger is sleeping; except for those times I wake up craving a cigarette.